Vehicles such as tanks have tracks comprised of individual track units linked together in a continuous loop travelling around an idler wheel, a sprocket and a set of road wheels. The road wheels roll upon the track units as these units engage the ground, the wheels being kept on the track by center guides projecting from the track units into circumferential channels in the wheels.
In some tanks, the road wheels are made of aluminum, which is softer than the material from which the center guides are made, whereby the center guides tend to destructively abrade the spiders of the road wheel. For these tanks, it is known to bolt wear plates of hardened steel onto the wheels to prevent abrasion of the spiders by the center guides. While the wear plates do extend the life of the wheels, the wear plates themselves need continual replacement due to abrasion. The continual replacement raises the material and maintenance costs of operating tanks and decreases the tanks degree of readiness.